GEORGE OSBORNE, the Shadow Chancellor, told Gordon Brown last night to stop lecturing Europe about its economic policies as the Chancellor faces censure for breaching European Union borrowing rules.

Seizing on news that today the European Commission will institute “excessive deficit procedures” against Britain, Mr Osborne said: “Gordon Brown has been forever lecturing Europe on how to manage its economy. But after a year in which Brown fiddled the fiscal rules, missed his growth forecast and saw public borrowing run out of control, now it’s the European Commission who is lecturing Brown on how to manage the public finances.”

With estimates suggesting that Britain will break the budget deficit ceiling of 3 per cent of gross domestic product for the fourth year running, the Commission will call on finance ministers to declare that that the UK is running an “excessive deficit” and demand that it take action.

It is the first time that the Commission has instituted such a move against Britain, but because Britain has not joined the euro, Brussels does not have the power to impose sanctions.

Should the Commission demand action, the Chancellor faces the indignity of being censured by finance ministers from countries whose economic performance he has compared unfavourably with that of Britain. Finance ministers could ask him as early as this month to take action to reduce borrowing by next July. The Treasury argues that Britain has enjoyed the lowest average debts and deficits of any big European economy since 1997.

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